So The Conduit, a First person shooter for the Nintendo Wii, is coming out soon and it's being Developed by High Voltage Software. Before hearing about the game I never heard of the company but it turns out they've been Developing games since 1995 while the company was started in 93 by founder and CEO Kerry Ganofsky. Here's the history of High Voltage Software.





High Voltage Software (HVS) is a game development company located at Illinois' Hoffman Estates. Established in 1993, it now employs approximately 130 staff members. Red Eye Studios, a motion capture facility, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of HVS. Typically producing completely new and unrelated products back to back, Inside Drive and Hunter are the only products to have seen sequels, and the company typically works with a number of different publishers as each project ends. The Conduit for the Wii console has been entirely self-funded without the help of a publisher, although Sega has signed on to publish and distribute the game.


Quantum3 engine

From Wikipedia:
Quantum3 is a Wii-specific game engine developed by High Voltage Software. The engine itself had been used in several previous titles made by the developer, but was heavily upgraded for higher performance on the Wii. This engine allows for "full 16-TEV stage material pipeline using up to eight texture sources and a host of innovative blend operations," and "allows the developer to create graphic effects normally seen on other consoles with vertex and pixel shaders." These effects include bump-mapping, reflection and refraction, light and shadow maps and projections, specular and Fresnel effects, emissive and iridescent materials, advanced alpha blends, gloss and detail mapping, motion blur, interactive water with complex surface effects, and animated textures, among other things. The Quantum3 engine also includes advanced artificial intelligence, allowing for entities in a game using the engine to possess "human-like behavior." According to Chief Creative Officer Eric Nofsinger, "Our [High Voltage Software's] goal is to be the most technically innovative Wii developer on the planet."

From the offical site:
Quantum 3 Engine is a complete development framework for the most successful gaming platforms today, including NINTENDO®Wii, PLAYSTATION®2, PLAYSTATION® PORTABLE, and Direct X 9-equipped PCs, providing a complete set of core technologies and content creation tools required by top game and simulation developers.

Every aspect of the Quantum 3 Engine has been designed with rapid iteration, ease of content creation and programming in mind, with the explicit goal of putting as much power as possible in the hands of artists and designers to develop assets in a visual environment with minimal programmer assistance. This system also gives programmers a highly modular, scalable and extensible framework for building, testing, and shipping games in a wide range of genres.

Quantum 3 Engine is integrated with numerous leading middleware technologies through High Voltage Software’s Partners Program. Continual optimizations are made to the Quantum 3 Engine’s highly mature tool pipeline in order to provide the most robust and current technology available. Quantum 3 Engine's advanced toolset is designed specifically to accelerate productivity and allow for incredibly detailed, rapid iteration.


Key Features

* Rendering
o High Dynamic Range rendering pipeline.
* Animation
o Putting art assets into motion.
* Audio
o Cross-platform support for sounds and music.
* Physics Rigid bodies, ragdolls, and physics-based animation.
* Cinema Tool
o In-engine cinematics.
o Track-based key-framing system for controlling movement and modifying properties.
* Particle Tool
o Particle effects.
o Artist-driven system for creating particles and emitters.
* Editor
o QuantumEd.
o Designed to work with various aspects of the content creation pipeline.
o Gameplay scripting - Designer-driven system for creating complex sequences of events and actions.
* StratScript
o Integrated programming language.
o A fully procedural language with special game-specific features.
* Networking
o Quantum 3 Engine has a flexible high-level network architecture suitable to many genres of games.
o Internet play is fully supported on all console platforms.
o Integrated voice communication on the NINTENDO®Wii.
o Quantum 3 Engine gameplay network programming is high-level and data-driven, allowing game code to specify variables and functions to be replicated between client and server to maintain a consistent approximation of game state. The low-level game networking transport combines reliable and unreliable transmission schemes to optimize gameplay, even in low-bandwidth and high-latency scenarios.
o Client-server model supporting up to 16 players as provided.
* Localization
o Quantum 3 Engine content and code are localization-aware, with a simple framework for externalizing all game text, audio, images, and videos.
o Quantum 3 Engine is based on the Unicode character set, and has full support for 16-bit Unicode fonts and text input, including importing TrueType fonts into renderable bitmap fonts.
o Our games have shipped in 9 languages including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
* Programming
o Extensible, object-oriented C++ engine with software framework for persistence, dynamic loading of code and content, portability, debugging.
o StratScript gameplay scripting language provides automatic support for metadata; persistence with very flexible file format backwards-compatibility; support for exposing script properties to level designers in QuantumEd; a GUI-based script debugger; and native language support for many concepts important in gameplay programming, such as state machines and time-based (latent) execution of code.
o Source control friendly software architecture, scalable to large teams and multi-platform projects.
o Quantum 3 Engine is provided as one unified codebase that compiles on PC and all supported console platforms. Most game content and data files are compatible across all supported platforms, for fast turnaround time between code and content development on PC, and playtesting on console or PC. Some advanced content and functionality is only available on the next-generation consoles at this time.
* Debugging and Performance Monitoring Tools
o Memory tracking tools.
o Remote Control utility – extensible tool that runs alongside the game to allow for setting flags and running helper commands.

* Awards
o Best Wii Game of E3 (IGN.com)
o Best Wii Shooter of E3 (IGN.com)
o Best Graphics Technology on Wii (IGN.com)
o Honorable Mention for Real-Time Control on Wii (IGN.com)
o Best Wii Game of E3 (Gametrailers.com)
o Top 20 Games of E3 (Edge-online.com)


Quantum3 Tech Demo

Developed games

2009 Evasive Space Akinai Game Wii (WiiWare)
2009 High Voltage Hot Rod Show HVS Wii (WiiWare)
2008 Gyrostarr HVS Wii (WiiWare)
2008 V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack HVS Wii (WiiWare)
2008 Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue 2k Play PlayStation 2, Wii
2007 America's Army: True Soldiers UbiSoft Xbox 360
2007 Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 UbiSoft PSP
2007 Ben 10: Protector of Earth D3 Publisher PlayStation 2, Wii, PSP
2007 Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law Capcom PlayStation 2, Wii, PSP
2006 Family Guy Video Game! 2K Games, Fox Interactive PlayStation 2, Xbox, PSP
2006 Blitz: Overtime Midway Games PSP
2006 The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Midway Games Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Wii
2005 Codename: Kids Next Door - Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E. Global Star Software Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2
2005 Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (Content Port) Activision Nintendo GameCube
2005 50 Cent: Bulletproof G Unit Edition Vivendi Games PSP
2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Global Star Software PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC, GBA, GCN
2005 Zathura Take 2 PlayStation 2, Xbox
2004 Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude Sierra Entertainment PlayStation 2, PC, Xbox
2004 Duel Masters Atari PlayStation 2
2003 The Haunted Mansion TDK
2003 NBA Inside Drive 2004 Microsoft
2003 Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer Interplay Xbox
2003 Hunter: The Reckoning: Wayward Interplay PlayStation 2
2002 Hunter: The Reckoning Interplay Xbox, GameCube
2002 Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626 Disney Interactive PlayStation
2002 NBA Inside Drive 2002 Microsoft
2002 Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction Ubisoft PC
2002 Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (Content Port) Interplay GameCube
2000 NFL Quarterback Club 2001 Acclaim Dreamcast, N64
2000 All-Star Baseball 2001 (with KnowWonder) Acclaim N64
2000 Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy (with Massive Entertainment) Sierra Studios PC
2000 NBA Inside Drive 2000 Microsoft Xbox
1999 Lego Racers LEGO Media PSX, N64, PC
1999 Paperboy Midway Games N64
1997 NCAA Final Four '97 Mindscape PSX, PC
1997 World League Basketball Mindscape PSX, PC
1996 Tempest X3 Interplay PSX
1996 Tempest 2000 Interplay Sega Saturn, Macintosh
1996 NBA Hang Time Midway Games PC
1996 Fight For Life Atari Atari Jaguar
1996 NBA Jam: Tournament Edition Midway Games Atari Jaguar
1996 NHL Open Ice Midway Games PC
1995 Vid Grid Jasmine Atari Jaguar, Macintosh
1995 Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Interplay Sega 32X
1995 Ruiner Pinball Atari Atari Jaguar
1995 White Men Can't Jump Atari Atari Jaguar

So there you have it. High Voltage Software has been around doing this for sixteen years now and I think that 2009 is going to be there best year ever. With 5 amazing games in development for the 2009-2010 year (Four of them being solely for the Nintendo Wii). High Voltage Software is going to be shaking things up, making us all stand and take notice.